Players, fans and officials paid tribute to Dylan Tombides before West Ham’s home loss to Crystal Palace (Picture: Getty Images)

If legendary Liverpool manager Bill Shankly really did say that famous quote attributed to him about football being more than a matter of life and death, presumably it was said with a glint in his eye which has largely been lost over the years, as it is regularly trotted out as one of the standard cliches to apply to any vaguely tense footballing situation.

Shots of tear-stained fans are now a regular feature on our screens, and rather than being roundly laughed at, they are regarded as symbols of drama. Seriously, get over yourselves people – if you’re a grown adult and you cry over football, you need to get out more, and not just to football.

There are some things in life that are genuinely worth shedding tears over, like the death of a young person loaded with talent, who has come halfway across the world to fight their way up to the highest level for a chance to showcase that ability – only to have it snuffed out in the most cruel way before they even had a chance. And that is what happened to West Ham’s Australian player Dylan Tombides this week.

His name and his cancer struggle were well known to most fans, but with him having got fit enough to make his first-team debut in 2012, surely it was safe to assume that those problems were in the past, wasn’t it? John Hartson had it, and he’s still around to tell the tale – that’s how these things work out. Or so we thought.

The news of his death on Good Friday was a bolt from the blue, which has left a huge cloud over the club.

With the memory of Bobby Moore and his tragically early death (51) part of the club’s DNA, and known to all fans, West Ham is a club with a stronger link than many to the fight against cancer. But if 51 is tragically early, then how do you begin to describe a death at the age of 20? To put things in perspective, Moore’s death, which still seems so recent to many middle aged fans, occurred before Dylan Tombides was even born. That’s how young he was.

This season has been a pretty dispiriting affair all round at Upton Park, and entering the home stretch of the season, West Ham are still not completely out of the woods in the relegation fight – close, but not assured of safety.

Tuesday’s half-hearted surrender at Arsenal was a further cause for concern, which raised the stakes ahead of Saturday’s match against Crystal Palace, the penultimate home game of the campaign. But after Friday’s news, everything took on a different tone.

The match? A ninth home league defeat of the season, and the sixth loss in the last eight games. Much to moan about? Plenty. But let’s save that for another time. Somehow this week it doesn’t seem quite right. After all, it’s only a game. It’s not like somebody’s died.